


And All the Days After

by rubysharkruby



Series: Even in the Summer, Even in the Spring [1]
Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Consensual Somnophilia, Domestic, Established Relationship, M/M, Sleepy Sex, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-11-26 03:16:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20923274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rubysharkruby/pseuds/rubysharkruby
Summary: Edward believed himself selfish on these mornings, but he was a gift like this. Something only for Tom.





	And All the Days After

It hardly seemed fair that Tom, who had been born above a public house in the shadow of the largest city in the world, should wake at the drop of a pin whilst Edward, who had spent his boyhood surrounded by green fields and rattling around his family’s nice big house, could sleep through almost anything.

Noise had been a constant of Tom’s childhood. Hunger too, of course—there wasn’t a family around their way who didn’t go without from time to time; and love, there had always been plenty of that, but it was the noise that shaped the world around him. The grating wail of a baby; the clatter of carts on cobblestones; the pounding of the knock-up man who didn’t care if he woke the entire row instead of just the one man he’d been paid for. Even turning his back on the bustling streets and following his father until there was dirt beneath their feet and trees overhead meant the deafening report of a gun followed by terrible screams until Tom’s arm grew stronger and his aim better. Some men suffered on their first voyage, unused to the clamour of the bell at all hours and the sound and smell and tension of so many men packed into so small a space, but Tom never had that problem. He’d wondered if Edward might—growing up in such quiet and going to sea so young—but Edward said no. A hundred men would have to work very hard to be louder than his sisters.

“Were you afraid?” Tom had asked the question last week, as they lay warm and sated after an evening of loving each other and were beginning the slow downwards drift into sleep. It was only now that they were home that they spoke of such things. They had loved each other in the Arctic—fiercely, foolishly, and at times despite themselves—but a man cannot speak of fear unless he first feels himself safe.

“Very much so,” Edward replied, voice low and whiskers a pleasant scratch against the back of Tom’s shoulder. “Everyone was so tall and spoke so quickly and seemed always to know what it was they were meant to be doing. It was confusing. But the men were kind to me. Some had sailed with my father and would tell me what a bear he could be but that they had never met a better sailor. And there were two boys only a little older than I who helped me. It was the best thing my father ever did for me.”

“And did the blacksmith fashion a special bell just to rouse young Master Little from his hammock in the morning?”

That earned him a pinch to his naked hip that made him yelp with surprised laughter rather than pain, for it had been gentler than his teasing deserved.

Attending to the needs of Terror’s lieutenants hadn’t been one of Tom’s duties, but Ned Genge would sometimes mention things in passing; offhand comments of the sort shared between men who worked side by side but had little in common save their occupation. Mostly, it was Lieutenant Irving he spoke of, or Hodgson and his habit of repeating jokes he’d told at dinner and laughing to himself, but very occasionally he would let slip some small detail of their closemouthed first lieutenant: a book he was reading; his amateurish attempts at sketching; the cup of tea he would request each evening as he wrote in his logbook and leave barely touched for Billy Gibson to tidy away the following morning. None of it was anything like the type of thing Tom secretly wondered, but it was enough to keep him from scolding Genge for his loose tongue.

The only truly interesting thing his fellow steward had to share was how difficult Lieutenant Little was to rouse in the morning. How Gibson had learnt to rap lightly on his door first and, if the lieutenant was not already awake, let himself in because any knock loud enough to wake him would draw the attention of the entire ship. Saying his name and a firm shake of his shoulder would apparently do the trick, something he had given Gibson permission to do under these circumstances.

At this point in the telling Tom had glanced at Gibson, wondering how that conversation had gone, but, while Gibson was often present when Genge shared these mundane titbits about the men the two of them served, he rarely added to them. Just plodded resentfully through his work and kept his ears pinned back in the vain hope Tom would offer up some gossip about the captain in return.

Once the lieutenant was awake Gibson would attend to Irving, Genge had continued, and return afterwards with Lieutenant Little’s shaving water. He’d be on his feet by then.

“Bleary-eyed and even more sullen than usual,” Gibson muttered, low enough that Tom might have pretended not to hear if not for the gleeful look it brought to Genge’s face. Idle chatter meant idle hands, as Tom’s first employer had been fond of telling his boys, and Tom made certain that neither of the subordinate officers’ stewards were idle the rest of that day.

Still, the thought stayed with him. _Bleary-eyed and sullen_ were Gibson’s words, but the image in Tom’s head that night when he settled in behind the drawn curtain of his own narrow berth and took himself in hand was more sleepy than sullen. Tousled. That stiff neck made pliable. He imagined the lieutenant’s eyes, so dark and unreadable, made mild and trusting and the stern line of his mouth yielding beneath the gentlest pressure. The warmth and wetness within. All of him would be warm and softened by sleep, the hard edges and gloss of the officer melting away to reveal the man beneath. A man of flesh and blood, like Tom. Flesh and blood and strong shoulders and thighs that would part so sweetly, the sigh he would let out as he tipped back that proud chin to bare the vulnerable stretch of skin between whiskers and collarbone for Tom’s mouth. Making a place for him.

It was a faintly embarrassing fantasy, and far from the only one he harboured about the handsome lieutenant, but he returned to it again and again. Part of him remained jealous of Gibson for his early morning duties, but the part of Tom that still had some sense was relieved not to have his resolve tested in such a way. Clearing away empty bottles and navigating the captain’s temper was far simpler.

When he and Edward had finally come together it was so good and so unlike that particular fantasy that Tom had put it from his mind. The man beneath the gold braid was very much flesh and blood and the moments they shared were often the only warmth to be found in that cold and terrible place. Edward’s cabin and the shadowy corners of the orlop and slops room became very well known to Tom, but it was too dangerous to linger and so it wasn’t until they had abandoned the ships that he got to see Edward upon waking and confirm that he’d had the right of it rather than Gibson. Sleepy, not sullen.

Not that it mattered. By then, the only privacy to be found was a tent shared with Lieutenant Le Vesconte and the rot spreading through Tom’s body meant he was too sick and sore to want Edward close for any reason other than that he was warm and dear and it made the fear in his eyes recede just a little to have Tom within reach. At night he and Le Vesconte would put Tom between then, flanking him, like their still-strong bodies could keep out the sickness eating Tom from within. Soon, he was the one needing to be shaken awake at the start of each day and the exhaustion he felt upon waking would stay with him, draped over him like a blanket, slowly smothering him and growing heavier with each step. Every day he had wondered if this would be his last; every night he had fit his aching bones against the sharp angles of Edward’s body and felt the hand he always twisted into Tom’s shirt tighten its grip. Trying to hold on even as Tom felt himself slipping away.

It felt like another life now. The pain and helpless fear had already begun to grow distant during their months of recovery at Fort Resolution, to feel like they belonged to another Tom Jopson, and maybe that was for the best. Maybe that was the only way a man could keep going after all that had happened.

There were parts of that Tom Jopson’s life that made it back to England and others that did not. The sheet of paper bearing the captain’s signature made it back—neatly folded and kept close like a talisman—but the commission it granted did not. Tom had known it wouldn’t, not for someone like him. On the march the need had been dire and the captain thought well enough of him to provide him with a new occupation after his old one became worthless, but the navy was suffering no shortage of lieutenants and wasn’t about to hand over a commission to a tradesman’s son who had spent his years at sea serving officers, not training to become one. No, it hadn’t come as a surprise.

Edward took the news harder than Tom. He had returned to find himself a commander these past three years, the promotion having been confirmed while Terror and Erebus were settling in for their first winter off the shore of King William Land and none of them yet realising that neither ship would ever move again. Back then, Tom had thought Edward aloof, arrogant perhaps, and was tickled to learn that Edward had thought the same of him. Less pleasant was the further confession that Edward had been convinced for a time that Tom was aware of his attentions and amused by them, but Edward’s tone was wry when he recounted this, untroubled by old hurts. Not for him the nightmares that would even now sink their claws into Tom and tear him from sleep, at times violently enough that Edward would wake and gather Tom to him, soothing his trembling with steady hands and soft voice. Sometimes they would speak of the expedition and all that they had survived, but more often they would lie in silence and hold each other until dawn.

Of all the things Tom had brought back with him from the Arctic his relationship with Edward was what he had most wanted to keep. He could be happy with this quiet, perplexing man and the life they would build together; he didn’t need to be an officer for that. But he didn’t stop Edward from petitioning the Admiralty to reconsider their decision, nor did he protest when Edward was swiftly joined in this by other survivors of the expedition—including Le Vesconte, whose name, Edward dryly remarked, would always carry more weight than the son of a boatswain, no matter that one was now a commander and the other still a lieutenant.

It was plain that nothing would come of this campaign, so Tom was unprepared for the letter waiting for him when they returned from a week visiting Edward’s middle sister and the most recent addition to the family, named for his uncle. The Admiralty had relented and decided that Tom would be permitted to keep his commission and receive a lieutenant’s half-pay, so long as it was understood that this was a courtesy extended to him in recognition of his service during the expedition. It did not entitle him to serve at sea.

“How have you done this?” Tom asked once he had read the words for the third time, still disbelieving.

“I write a very good letter.” Edward plucked the page from Tom’s numb fingers. His voice still carried a tinge of the accent that surfaced around his family; the vowels flattened and the register settled low and warm beneath its usual crispness. He had gone to sea very young and was an intelligent man who had doubtless been a bright boy. It wouldn’t have taken him long to notice that none of the officers sounded like his father or the men from town.

“You’ve never written me any letters.” Tom fitted himself to Edward’s back, arms around his waist and chin hooked over his shoulder so they could read together.

“I’ve never needed to. I suppose I will now.”

“When you find a ship.”

“Yes.” Edward covered Tom’s arms with his own and leant back, just a little, letting Tom take his weight. The perfect combination of lean and solid. “I had hoped you and I might sail together again.”

“We can. But I would be your steward, not your lieutenant.”

They stood quietly together in the sunlit hallway. The flat they had taken belonged to an old friend and former shipmate of Edward’s, currently serving aboard the Albion in the Black Sea, and was far nicer than anything either of them could afford without such generosity. Russell Square was a stone’s throw away and the British Museum only a little beyond that. Edward had confessed to holding no great love for London but it had been a godsend when they first returned—convenient both for Edward’s very polite war with the Admiralty and for Tom’s family. His father had remarried while Tom was at sea and there were two new sisters to go with the brother who was now taller than Tom. It had healed something in him to see them all well and happy, to walk through familiar streets with Edward and then take him home and close the door between them and the rest of the world, but he had always known it was temporary. This wasn’t the life of a sailor.

“Would you want that?” Edward asked eventually, turning just enough for Tom to see the freckled bridge of his nose and one dark eye but not to read his expression.

A good question. “I don’t know.” Tom kissed his cheek and began unbuttoning his waistcoat. Edward’s family had always been nothing but kind to him but in some respects it had been a very long week. “Ask me again when you have a ship.”

Edward still didn’t have a ship, but they had left London all the same. He had found work for them both in Portsmouth, and Tom had followed a tip from an old pal to an available house on a particular street with a landlady who took their money and smiled politely when told they were cousins. Tom couldn’t serve as a lieutenant at sea, but there was nothing barring him from taking a position at the dockyard and he found the work satisfying enough; managing stores in much the same way he had managed the captain’s storeroom on Terror, and the supplies they hauled in the boats after that. At the end of each day he got to come home with money in his pocket and tuck his face into that warm space between Edward’s whiskers and his collarbone and breathe in deep. It was the kind of life he’d never known he could have.

Of course, things would be even better if it weren’t for the inconsiderate oaf who lived next door. That was what had woken Tom, he was certain—a door closing with too much enthusiasm for this time of the morning. He lay in the warm hollow of their bed, Edward breathing softly at his side, and strained his ears to catch the thump of boots on stairs and another door slamming at the top of the house. The fellow seemed harmless enough during daylight hours, and always apologised and promised to be more careful in the future, but the message never seemed to stick. At this point, Tom was seriously considering requisitioning something from the armoury that would leave more of an impression.

Though, judging by the light coming in through a gap in the curtains, at least it wasn’t so early this time: an hour at most before Tom would usually wake on a workday. Today, however, was Sunday. They had plans to join the cousins who lived at the end of the street for dinner at a local tavern that evening, but nowhere to be before then. No obligations. Nothing to stop Tom from pulling Edward’s arm around himself and going back to sleep.

Instead he turned onto his side. Edward was stretched out on his stomach, as he tended to do whenever they had a bed big enough to accommodate his sprawling limbs. His face was turned towards Tom, tucked into the crook of his elbow and half-hidden by the unruly tumble of hair across his brow. Tom wanted to sweep it back, to kiss the faint notch between his brows, but while Edward could most likely sleep through an earthquake or a brass band playing at the foot of the bed, he would startle awake the instant you touched his face. Tom would bet Gibson had never known about that.

For a moment he just watched Edward. The familiar beloved lines of him in the pale morning light and the steady rise and fall of his bare back. Summer was in its dying days but last night had been warm and the blankets kicked down around their waists some time in the early hours, barely concealing the fact that beneath them Edward was as naked as Tom himself. Sleep had seemed close only seconds before but Tom’s blood was stirring now, waking up at the rough slide of blankets against his bare skin and having Edward so close. He reached out and touched fingertips to Edward’s shoulder.

A shake would do it. He could bring Edward up from the depths of slumber and he would grumble, certainly, and huff at the early hour, but he would turn sweet beneath caresses. Caught in that thick, languid state between dreaming and waking where he would press back into every touch and let Tom take care of him with no thought beyond his own pleasure. Edward believed himself selfish on those mornings, but he was a gift like that. Something only for Tom.

A shake would do it; but there were better ways.

Edward didn’t stir when Tom stroked a slow path across his back. Beneath his palm, Edward’s skin was warm and smooth, unblemished but for the freckles scattered across his shoulders and tanned from those workless days when they had borrowed a small sloop and he had taught Tom to handle her, making him feel like a sailor for the first time in all the years he had spent at sea. Tom followed the relaxed line of his spine down and then up again, brushing the curling hair at the nape of his neck, and then to the faint scar across his shoulder blade where a cutlass had once caught him. Edward always wanted to hear about the Antarctic but would answer questions about his own old voyages with a faintly bemused air, like he couldn’t understand why Tom would be interested in battles with pirates and slaver ships. There was a more impressive scar on Edward’s forearm, earned in that same skirmish, but Tom had a certain fondness for this one. It was pale, almost invisible in low light, but Tom set his mouth to it whenever he had Edward face down and beneath him or turned on his side and groaning into the pillow, hot and tight and full of life and Tom in equal measure.

He skimmed fingertips across that scar now and Edward made a soft sighing noise, brows drawing together before he rubbed his cheek against the sheets and settled. Tom dragged his lip slowly over his teeth.

Another door slammed in the neighbouring house but Tom paid it no mind. He stroked down the strong line of Edward’s back and gently pulled away the blanket gathered at his hips, baring him entirely to the morning light and Tom’s covetous gaze. The loss of his covering made Edward kick a little, toes curling against the sheets, but that was all so Tom looked his fill. Well-formed shoulders tapering to narrow hips. Long legs, dark with the same hair that grew thick on his chest; bony at the ankle and strong at the thigh, leading up the pale curve of his backside with its shadowed cleft.

Tom’s own legs were too warm beneath their layer of blankets so he kicked them to the foot of the bed. The entire room felt warm, the air growing thick. Tom spread one hand across the base of Edward’s spine, smoothing it back and forth and then downwards over that enticing curve to settle on the back of a solid thigh. Coarse hair brushed his palm and his fingers turned inwards, seeking the smooth inside of Edward’s thigh. He was ticklish here. Sensitive. Tom could kneel between his spread thighs and have him near ready to spill just by rubbing his rough cheek along that pale stretch of skin and leaving kisses everywhere but the place Edward most wanted his mouth. He ran his hand up to Edward’s hip and then down again and back, as captivated as if this were still new and Edward’s body not more familiar to him by now than his own. Lightly raking his fingernails down the back of Edward’s thigh raised gooseflesh but Tom was the one who shivered. His hand came to rest on Edward’s backside. He pulled gently, opening him to the air, and Edward made a low sound at the back of his throat.

In the cabinet beside the bed was a bottle of olive oil. Tom had laughed at Edward when he first brought it home, flustering him, but he had been more than happy to demonstrate its superior properties and Tom had been left boneless, breathless, and thoroughly convinced. Removing the stopper brought forth a rich smell and memories of past uses they had found for it: that first demonstration when Edward had slicked himself up and pushed into Tom, that slow relentless stretch he liked best; or last night and the luxurious lazy pull of each other’s hand as they traded kisses.

The memory had Tom taking himself in hand now, almost absently. Just a squeeze, just something to blunt the edge of the ache building within before he turned his attention back to Edward.

It took gentle work to coax him into the position Tom wanted; still on his stomach but with one leg bent up and turned out, spreading him. Edward grumbled at the treatment but didn’t wake. Tom’s heart was beating a little faster now as he stretched out beside Edward, raising himself up on one elbow to better admire the sight of his hand cupping Edward’s paler skin. He squeezed that perfect handful before dragging a dry thumb down the crease. A tremor ran through Edward and Tom took his hand from him only long enough to coat the first two fingers in oil.

Edward was sensitive here too; deliciously so. Tremors became squirming and quiet groans caught at the back of his throat as Tom stroked him through the slippery wet, touching all those soft secret places that made Edward’s body light up even as he slept. A flush rose in his cheeks and his breath came in harsh little pants through parted lips as Tom rubbed back and forth, across and around, and finally inside where Edward was hot and snug. There was no resistance as Tom stroked deeper, feeling his own breath grow short and the ache in the pit of his gut pulse sharp and needful.

A second finger made Edward grunt and roll his hips. He was sweating lightly, a shine across the small of his back and the warm masculine scent of him growing richer and heady. Tom crowded in closer. He always forgot how good this was, the slick grip around his fingers and the way Edward was responding to the steady plunge and drag inside him. The way his body was coming awake beneath pleasure even if the rest of him hadn’t caught up yet.

He turned his fingers, gliding across that spot that rendered Edward wild and felt him shudder all along the length of Tom’s body. God, he was beautiful like this. Muscle shifting across his back and expression blissful. Even in sleep he was hungry for it, restlessly grinding down into the sheets and then back onto Tom’s fingers.

“Mm,” Edward mumbled. “Yes. Like that.”

His lashes didn’t stir against his cheeks and his voice was thick; still asleep or close to it. He reached out blindly and his hand grazed Tom’s chin before bumping against his chest, sinking into the hair there and then trailing down. His fingers snagged against Tom’s navel before finding his cock.

“Mm,” he said again. “Tom. Yes.”

“Is that how you recognise me, you silly sod?” Tom bit his lip to try and contain his grin, chest hitching with laughter and an almost painful fondness for this man. He crooked his fingers and Edward made an approving noise, thighs spreading wider. “Are you dreaming?”

“No, no. My Tom.”

Tom kissed his shoulder. “Shall we get you turned on your side?”

Edward made the same noise of approval and let himself be rolled over so that his back was to Tom’s chest. Tom moved closer, settling one arm beneath Edward’s head like a pillow and feeling the scratch of his whiskers as he nuzzled against it sleepily, somewhere between asleep and awake and perfectly content.

Sinking into him was always overwhelming. So good that Tom had to press his forehead between Edward’s shoulder blades and pant, not certain if it was Edward’s groan or his own he could feel vibrate through him. The first time they did this had been at Fort Resolution. Back on Terror they had made each other very happy with hands and mouths and Edward had fucked Tom only once, two nights before he had set out across the ice to establish Terror Camp; spit and grease and Tom begging for it harder _harder_, to make him feel it the entire time Edward was gone. For a long time he had thought those stolen moments were all they would ever have, but Fort Resolution had been a place of regained strength and second chances. Tom had almost grown used to the feel of his hair cropped short as a convict’s and Edward’s bare face and then short beard by the time Edward lured him into a storeroom and pressed a tin of grease into his hand. He hadn’t quite been able to read the look in Edward’s eyes when he asked if Tom was recovered enough for this.

Edward’s hips had been sharp against Tom’s palms and the knobs of his spine showed above the collar of his shirt. The hard angles and tension of him was entirely unlike the sleepy man Tom held in his arms now, but his breath still caught in the same way as Tom moved deeper and left him in a sigh when Tom kissed the back of his neck.

The skin beneath Tom’s lips tasted of salt and the good, warm scent of Edward filled his lungs. Edward gripped him perfectly, quiet murmurs escaping him as Tom rocked into that welcoming heat, stroking his chest in the same unhurried rhythm. His body was one long relaxed line, letting Tom move him how he wanted, letting Tom make him feel good.

He felt the moment when Edward truly awoke, the jolt and confused noise that melted into a moan. “Oh!” His fingers curled around Tom’s forearm. “Ohh. Incubus.”

Tom kissed the back of his ear. “Good morning.”

“It is,” Edward agreed, voice slow and a little puzzled, sleep still clinging to him and making the line between dreams and waking hazy. Tom felt him waver, as he always did on these mornings, deciding whether to shake sleep off entirely or stay in this drowsy easy state and put himself in Tom’s hands. Tom stroked his chest, coaxing, and Edward settled again with a sigh and a scratchy kiss to the arm beneath his cheek.

“Mm,” he said. “I was having such a fine dream.”

“Is that so?” Tom buried a smile in the back of Edward’s neck, a thrill chasing through him at the easy surrender. He smoothed his palm down Edward’s chest to his flat stomach and then up again in a meandering caress that Edward arched into with a pleased hum, continuing over his ribs and flank and then down to his thigh. He urged Edward’s knee up a little closer to his chest and groaned when Edward tilted his hips back, letting him slide in that bit deeper. “Will you tell me about it?”

At first Edward didn’t seem to have heard. The new angle was sending tremors through him with every press of Tom’s hips and his breath stuttered in his chest. “Oh,” he said when Tom repeated the question. “No, no.”

“Please?” Tom punctuated the word with a little more force behind his next thrust, something a little more insistent than the gentle rhythm he had established. Edward moaned and pushed back against him, delightfully greedy, then made a distressed noise and dug fingers into his arm when Tom went still. “Please.” Tom fought to keep the strain from his voice. He rubbed his rough chin against the back of Edward’s shoulder and felt him shiver. “Tell me about your dream. Was I there?”

“We were on Terror,” Edward said finally, reluctance in his voice but a smile there too. Tom rewarded them both by rocking in deep and then out again, long slow strokes like the rolling waves of the sea. A gentle Sunday morning fuck that could take its time getting them where they wanted to be.

“We were on Terror,” he prompted when Edward fell silent.

Edward sighed and rubbed his whiskered cheek against Tom’s arm. “We were on Terror. It was dinner and you were serving. Handsome. Oh, offering wine. You wouldn’t look at me.”

“I did. I always looked.”

Edward ignored that, but the smile was more obvious in his voice when he spoke again. “You leaned past my shoulder, pouring wine. Close. Your sleeve brushed mine. I could see your throat, the darkness of your beard. Smell your skin and the oil in your hair. You have a beauty mark on your throat, very light, like a secret. I wanted to touch my tongue to it.”

Tom licked his lips. “And did you?”

“Of course not.”

His tone made Tom laugh. He held Edward a little closer, kissing the freckles on his shoulder. “Well? And then what happened?”

“Nothing. The day ended, I retired. Slept. And then, then you joined me like I always wished you would.”

Even after he and Edward had begun seeking opportunities to meet in secret Tom would never have joined him in his cabin without an invitation or prior arrangement. His training rebelled at the intrusion and his good sense at the risk. They had always been so careful.

Still, the story was exciting him. The old fantasy of the stern lieutenant undone by sleep mingling with the heady reality of that same man, warm and happy in Tom’s arms and taking Tom’s cock so beautifully. Loving the feel of Tom inside of him. Tom’s strokes picked up their pace, following the quickening beat of his pulse.

“And what did I do?” Tom asked, slipping his hand down to curl around Edward’s cock where it lay thick and heavy against his thigh, giving it a friendly squeeze that made him gasp and rock forward into Tom’s grip. “Did the steward seduce the handsome lieutenant? Did I have my way with you?”

“Ah! Perhaps we played cribbage.”

Tom laughed, startled as he still often was by Edward’s rare and peculiar moments of humour. In response, he ran his fingers up from the base of Edward’s cock to circle beneath the head and grinned at the sharp sound it earned him. As he played with Edward he imagined him as he had been, the lieutenant Tom had thought haughty and aloof, only to discover he was— not shy, not that precisely, but uncertain when he didn’t know what was expected of him. Some of that he’d left in the Arctic: the Edward who had made it home had returned less credulous and more sure of himself, which suited him well, but it was that past Edward that Tom had first wanted like this. The solemn lieutenant lying in the dark, wanting Tom, even as Tom lay behind his own curtained-off section of the ship and frigged himself to thoughts of dark eyes and spread thighs. Both of them desperately wanting and thinking it something they could never have.

Tom stifled a moan and scraped his jaw along Edward’s shoulder. “I think I had my way with you. Slipped into your bed and kissed the protest from your mouth like a proper rogue.”

“_Protest_—”

“Kissed you all over until you were breathless and then put you on your belly. That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it? When you thought about me at dinner, wanting me to look back. You wanted me to kiss you and then turn you over and pull you up onto your knees.”

Tom moved as he spoke, rolling Edward down onto his belly and then drawing him up by the hips so Edward could get his knees beneath him, chest flat to the sheets. Like this, he could watch his oiled length working in and out of Edward, making the pleasure go sharp and wicked. He rubbed a thumb over the stretched shining skin where Edward took him and Edward let out a strangled noise, clenching exquisitely tight around Tom. “That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” Edward gasped.

“On your knees with your face in the pillows and your arse in the air.”

Beneath him, Edward let out a rough sound and reached between his legs but Tom pulled his hand away and pinned it to the sheets. This worked up, he wouldn’t need that. Tom widened his stance so that Edward’s knees were forced wide too, letting him in so deep, and shifted his weight so that he was bearing down on Edward. Hitting that good angle that made him choke and tighten in helpless spasms. His face was turned to the side, red and lost and his mouth gasping open. His hands clutched at the sheets.

“You wanted me to hold you down,” Tom told him, barely able to hear himself over the blood pounding in his ears. “Climb on top of you. Split you open and push into you, deep as I could get. You wanted to take all of me, didn’t you?”

“Oh God. Oh, oh—”

“You wanted me to fuck you.”

“_Yes_.”

Tom raked his teeth across that scar on Edward’s shoulder and then sucked hard, making him cry out. “That’s what I wanted too. I was looking. I saw you and I wanted you and I’ll keep you. _I’ll keep you_.”

He drove down into Edward, rough strokes finding their mark. The scalding pleasure of it was almost secondary as he focused on Edward’s increasingly frenzied gasps and the way his body was beginning to clamp down in waves. As soon as Tom got a hand around him Edward was spilling, was muffling a shout with his own fist and seizing up tight and shuddering. Tom kept moving in him, forcing himself to slow, drawing out Edward’s pleasure until he made that sound that meant it was on the verge of becoming too much. As careful as Tom tried to be, withdrawing still pulled a displeased hiss from Edward that he soothed with a hand running down his flank.

Tom kept that hand on Edward as he stroked himself. The banked fire inside of him flared bright and hot as he let his eyes roam across the vision laid out before him. The shining curve of Edward’s spine. The marks Tom had left across his shoulders. The way his thighs were still spread wide, hips tilted up, exposing that tender and well-used place for Tom to see. It was that last thought that had him cursing and striping Edward’s back and thighs in long pulses, wringing it out of himself, giving it all to Edward. Giving him everything he had if Edward would only let him.

After, Tom stayed on his knees while he caught his breath, head bowed and still cradling himself; feeling both hollowed out and like each limb weighed a hundred pounds. It took an inquisitive noise from Edward to get him moving again. He dropped a kiss on Edward’s shoulder before stretching out beside him, curled on his side and Edward sprawled out on his front. Exactly how they began.

Edward looked rather less asleep and rather more dishevelled now. His flushed cheek was pillowed on his folded arms, his eyes heavy-lidded and keen as he regarded Tom. Hair had fallen across his brow again, damp with sweat and sticking in places, and Tom could touch now so he brushed it back and sank his fingers into the thick locks, heart catching as Edward’s eyes fell shut with pleasure. He would have kept petting Edward for as long as it kept that look on his face, but Edward caught hold of his hand, kissed the palm, and used it to draw Tom to him. _Come here, come here_.

In time, blankets were retrieved and skin wiped clean and they settled with their legs tangled and Tom’s head on Edward’s chest. The sun was a little higher now, noise beginning to carry up from the streets as the town woke to a new day, but it was still early and they still with nothing to drive them from their bed. Tom could easily be lulled back to sleep like this; his body pleasantly heavy and Edward holding him close, his measured heartbeat beneath Tom’s cheek and his broad palm sweeping down his back.

Edward sighed, sounding as satisfied as Tom felt. “Mm. I take it I have Mr Burbage to thank.”

As if on cue, there came the crash of something heavy overturning in the house next door. Edward’s chest shook with silent mirth and Tom grunted, hiding his face. “Only if you think Mr Burbage snuck in and buggered you and then jumped out the window.”

He laughed at Edward’s lazy swat. Normally, he could expect a pinch or a hearty shove for that kind of cheek, but waking up in this way always put Edward in a mellow humour that could last the entire day. Tom kissed his chest in a not terribly sincere apology, smiling at the answering kiss to the crown of his head. “You really are a proper rogue,” Edward told him through a yawn, his body shifting beneath Tom's as he settled. “And very wicked. And far too good to me.”

“Oh, yeah.” Tom closed his eyes, tucking his arm securely around Edward’s waist. “It’s a terrible hardship getting everything I want. However do I bear it?”

Edward had nothing to say to that, just gathered Tom a little tighter against his chest and pressed another, longer kiss to his hair. His hand spread across the back of Tom's neck, warm and heavy.

Outside, someone was whistling as they headed out for the day or home after a night’s work; Mr Pryor’s dog barked twice before quieting. Tom smiled against Edward’s skin. They would sleep now, waking later for buttered toast and eggs and that fine cut of bacon Tom had bought yesterday; after that, Edward would fill the tin bath and Tom would give them both a shave and lay out their good clothes before their usual Sunday walk along the shoreline, so Edward could watch the ships and Tom could watch him watching them. One of these days, Edward would find a ship of his own and Tom would either follow him to sea or he would await his return—a steward once more, or a landbound lieutenant.

But that was a choice for the future. For now, there was sleep and bacon and the light in Edward’s handsome eyes when he sighted a fine ship; there was food shared with friends who understood, who knew what it meant to love quietly and love well. There was this house, this bed, and all the joy and peace they could bring each other, now and for the rest of their lives.

Edward’s breath rasped gently on the inhale. Sleep had found him first, as it always would, and maybe it wasn’t fair but there was something comforting about it all the same. Tom laid his head above the steady beat of Edward’s heart and let himself follow.


End file.
